The invention relates to a multipe bale opener with a transport device being inclined with respect to the plane of reduction and guiding pressed fiber bales to a horizontal plane of reduction, and with a reduction device shuttling in the plane of reduction, as well as to a method of opening and mixing different pressed fiber bales.
Such a bale opening device is known from DE-OS 20 61 044, according to which the pressed fiber bales set up in rows may be continuously fed longitudinally thereto, while the reduction is performed. In this case, the opening device may be displaced to and fro along a straight guide relative to the rows of bales, while the fiber material is fed along a rising ramp.
Such a multiple bale opener has the drawback that, substantially, it can only process batches of raw material that are uniform in height. Cotton mixtures of different origin indeed have bale dimensions varying considerably so that a manual levelling of the height has to be performed before the desired cotton mixture can be reduced by the known multiple bale opening device. In practice, the height differences are levelled by severing an upper portion from higher bales and putting these portions on the lower bales. This, however, entails a considerable variation in the mixture ratio of the batch.
It is a further drawback that mixture ratios can only be set as integral bale number ratios, namely ratios lying within the scope of the number of bales that are simutaneously reduced on the ramp.
It is an object of the invention to improve a multiple bale opener and a method for opening and mixing different pressed fiber bales such that an optional selectable and readily changeable mixture ratio can be set.
The object is soved with the features of the claims.